Epidemic Stirs Look At Policies

Health Officials To Review Restaurant Inspection Procedures

The contamination that triggered a salmonella outbreak this week would have been difficult to detect from routine restaurant inspections, state officials said on Thursday.

But the epidemic that may have reached 1,800 patrons of Margarita y Amigas, a Mexican restaurant in West Palm Beach, is forcing regulators to examine those procedures.

"We will take a very close look after this is said and done and see if there are holes in our procedures, and how we might be able to improve them," said Ed Towey, spokesman for the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

The department, which inspects restaurants at least three times a year, regularly found about a half-dozen of what it called non-critical violations at the restaurant over the past five years.

Inspections last December and May, for example, found food stored at improper temperatures and moldy cutting boards - not worrisome enough for special follow-up visits.

Restaurants are judged on 57 criteria. Critical violations would include inadequate fire protection, hazardous food and the presence of rodents.

But in the wake of what could be the largest outbreak of a food-borne illness in South Florida history, regulators acknowledge sloppy food handling could signal contamination.

The problem: given limited budgets, which restaurants do you scrutinize first?

Budgets for inspections haven't kept pace with the increasing number of restaurants in Florida, Towey said.

Inspectors now have caseloads of 209 accounts apiece. Each makes an average of 584 annual inspections, as many as eight inspections a day.

Add to that low salaries - more than half the inspectors in Palm Beach and Broward counties make $23,286 a year - and you have rapid turnover.

"Obviously it has an effect on continuity," Towey said.

Restaurant inspection itself has undergone substantial changes in recent years.

Until 1992, the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services directed the inspections through their 67 county health units.

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation took over in October 1992, after the state restaurant association complained that inspections varied too much from county to county.

Business and Professional Regulation changed the inspection routine somewhat: Restaurants with clean records were inspected twice a year instead of four times. That prompted concern among industry watchdogs.

Last month, the department changed its system again, increasing the minimum number of annual inspections to three, regardless of a restaurant's track record.

Still, said Towey, "we can no longer afford to devote a lot of time to people who are generally in compliance. We have to focus on the problem cases."

Margarita y Amigas fooled everybody - it wasn't one of those "problem cases" - until it was too late.